Detectives investigating the slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen are examining 911 calls made around the time she was shot in hopes of determining precisely where the attack occurred. Chasen was shot Tuesday morning while driving her Mercedes-Benz near the intersection of Whittier Drive and Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills as she headed home from a movie premiere after-party. Lt. Tony Lee of the Beverly Hills Police Department said officials have not concluded whether she was shot at the intersection or closer to where her car crashed into a light pole near Whittier and Greenway Drive.

Beverly Hills detectives investigating the slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen believe she was shot moments before her car crashed and came to rest off Sunset Boulevard early Tuesday. Authorities on Wednesday stressed that they have few leads in the case and that the motive for the attack is unclear. But they are focusing heavily on forensic evidence gathered from the spot where Chasen was found shot several times in her Mercedes coupe. Residents who heard the crash found Chasen slumped over the steering wheel bleeding, with the passenger-side window of her car shattered.

After a wearying weekend in New York, Leslie Michelson was unloading suitcases from a taxi around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday outside his Whittier Drive home in Beverly Hills when he heard what he called "very unusual noises. " They sounded like gunshots but they couldn't be, Michelson figured. Not in the flats of Beverly Hills, the platinum-plated home of magnates and movie stars. Hours later, Michelson was horrified to learn that he had heard the gunfire that ended the life of 64-year-old Ronni Chasen, a veteran Hollywood publicist.

Detectives investigating the slaying of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen have surmised from evidence that she was probably shot from another vehicle, perhaps an SUV, the mayor of Beverly Hills said. Mayor Jimmy Delshad said that although many questions remain unanswered, police believe Chasen's assailant fired into her passenger-side window from another vehicle and not from the street or a sidewalk. "Indications are [the shots] could have come from another car, higher up, maybe an SUV," Delshad said.

China may pay a Nobel price Re "China sets up Nobel boycott," Dec. 8 It occurs to me that all the "missing" representatives at the Nobel ceremony have the potential to create a heck of a political backlash against China. If the issue of why certain people were not in attendance is noted and continues to be discussed in detail, the world will be reminded about the state of politics in China today. After all, blackmail is still just blackmail. Craig Peterson Santa Monica Desperate times, desperate actions Re "Chasen killing appears solved," Dec. 9 The tragic shooting death of Ronni Chasen is, unfortunately, a predictable byproduct of an increasingly divided society.

December 12, 2010 | By Harriet Ryan and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

The day after Beverly Hills police said they believed Ronni Chasen's slaying was a botched robbery committed by a petty crook, the movie publicist's closest friends gathered for dinner at Kate Mantilini, the entertainment industry hangout. Around the table there were tears, memories and a deep concern that police might have gotten it wrong. "The consensus was there are still just too many unanswered questions," said Vivian Mayer Siskind, a longtime friend who got her start as a publicist working for Chasen.

December 4, 2010 | By Harriet Ryan and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

She spent her days with the film industry's glamorous and powerful and owned an art-filled condominium in a posh Westwood high-rise. He was a small-time criminal and drug user who slept in halfway houses and rundown apartments in the part of Hollywood tourists rarely visit. In the two days since ex-convict Harold Martin Smith committed suicide during a confrontation with detectives investigating the murder of Ronni Chasen, there has been intense speculation about the possible link between the movie publicist and the career criminal, with armchair sleuths and legal pundits spinning plots worthy of "Law & Order.

Several days after Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was found shot to death in her Mercedes-Benz, a friend voiced the hope to KNBC-TV news that the case wouldn't turn into "another Black Dahlia. " The friend was referring to the 1947 slaying of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, which has never been solved. Of course, mysterious deaths with links to Hollywood date to at least 1922, when debonair director William Desmond Taylor was found slain in his fashionable bachelor pad near the corner of 4th and Alvarado streets.

The premiere party for the movie "Burlesque" was just the sort of glitzy Hollywood affair that Ronni Chasen, a veteran movie publicist, loved, and as she had for four decades, she worked the room with relish. As celebrities, including Jane Fonda and the film's stars Cher and Christina Aguilera, mingled around a rooftop pool, Chasen moved among the revelers with a songwriter whose work she was promoting. "She was happy-go-lucky and gossipy and fun, just like she always was," said Jim Dobson, a publicist who crossed paths with Chasen around midnight.